I can't really say. The life of the old Junker nobility in Germany, on their great agricultural estates, was in some respects much like that of the Southern gentry. On the other hand, wealth was increasingly in the hands of the new rich, the industrialists of northern Germany, who had much in common with their counterparts in the northern United States.

German immigrants in the United States were mostly on the Union side. Another factor was the propaganda value of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", enormously popular in Germany. 14 Germany language editions were published in 1852.

specialcollections.vassar.edu/exh...html

If you ever visit Berlin, you may see a district named "Onkel Toms Huette."

There was a huge wave of German emigration to America following the events of 1848. The Germans who emigrated at this time were generally liberal and in many cases democratic radicals who were no longer welcome in the German states. They tended to migrate to tthe Northern states because (1) they were often anti-slavery to begin with, and (2) there was more opportunity for workers in the Northern states because of the lack of competition from slave labor.

By the time of the American Civil War these German immigrants to America were settling in, oten in the northern Midwest states such as Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. The states they settled in were on the side of the Union in the American Civil War. Their friends and relatives in Germany, many of whom they were still in contact with, knew this and knew that they had kin fighting on the side of the North.

Now it's not _quite_ that simple because some of the Germans settled in the South, so there were Germans on both sides of the American Civil War. But for the most part, the German-Americans were on the side of the North, with the political effects just described.

- Jordan